


Return To You

by Hekate1308



Category: Death in Paradise
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 03, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 01:57:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16693234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/pseuds/Hekate1308
Summary: Being sent back to London for recovery after he almost got stabbed to death is a surprise, and if he’s being honest with himself, he’s not entirely sure if it’s a good one. But then, he’s still dosed up on painkillers and spends most of his time asleep, only aware that the team, Catherine and a few others of the locals visit him each day, and that it’s a nice feeling to know that someone cares.Still, he’s being sent away. To London. For three whole months.





	Return To You

Being sent back to London for recovery after he almost got stabbed to death is a surprise, and if he’s being honest with himself, he’s not entirely sure if it’s a good one. But then, he’s still dosed up on painkillers and spends most of his time asleep, only aware that the team, Catherine and a few others of the locals visit him each day, and that it’s a nice feeling to know that someone cares.

Still, he’s being sent away. To London. For three whole months.

When the team hears it, they all voice their approval, but even in his weakened state he can tell Camille seems somewhat subdued.

Still, they all show up to take him to the airport – which is more necessary than he likes to admit since he’s not yet allowed out of the wheelchair – and she kisses his cheek once more as she tells him to come back soon.

He really hopes they’ll think his heightened colour comes from this morning’s unusual activities.

Maybe a little distance will do him good.

Or perhaps it’s just the pain killers.

* * *

 

Mum makes a fuss when she sees him, of course, but he doesn’t think he can blame her. After all, her only child almost got an ice pick in the heart only three weeks ago.

Dad is mostly silent, as usual; but when they arrive home and Richard gets ready to go to bed, he suddenly gathers him in a tight hug and says “I’m glad you’re going to be alright, son” before fleeing the room with tears in his eyes.

He decides he’ll deal with it when he’s not feeling utterly exhausted.

As it turns out, he all but sleeps through the next three days and wakes up properly to find increasingly worried messages from the team – well, mostly Camille – in his mailbox and on his phone.

After he does the math and calls her, he’s surprised to hear mostly relief in her voice. He was expecting to be chewed out for not getting into contact sooner.

“Richard! Is everything alright?”

“Yes, sorry. I was sleeping off the plane flight, it seems.”

“Of course! And how are you feeling?”

And then he starts telling her about the rain he can see drizzling down the window, about the grey skies, about the cake Mum’s baking him right now, and somehow, Camille grows very silent on the phone at the other end of the world.

* * *

 

A week after his arrival, he’s finally freed of the wheel chair, although Mum would have kept him in it if she could have.

“I’m so slow” he complains to Camille that evening. “I didn’t think I’d have to learn to walk again like a toddler.”

“You don’t have to learn to walk again, your body just needs time to adjust” she tells him and he can practically hear her eyes rolling.

“Yes, well, it should be able to do that faster. I’ve been walking on my own two feet for almost four decades now, how difficult could it be?”

“Richard, you have to take your time. We need you back in top condition.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Now there’s fondness in her voice. “Maman says she’ll make you another roast beef when you come back.”

Even he has to admit that Catherine’s cooking is excellent.

* * *

 

Two weeks after his arrival in London, his legs have finally stopped shaking when he’s walking around, and he’s informed that for the rest of his three months in England, he’s been assigned to Croydon to work on cold cases. He doesn’t exactly look forward to going back, but he least he knows it won’t be for long.

The thought surprises him. When did he start looking forward to get back to the sweltering heat of Saint Marie?

* * *

 

As it turns out, quite a few people left the station after Doug Anderson was arrested, and so he barely has to talk to anyone who remembers him from those times when he was only known as “Dick.” Mostly his colleagues are perfectly pleasant, even if he prefers dealing with the younger officers who need encouragement.

He remembers the feeling.

The work isn’t too taking either, and he soon starts to wish he could be put on active cases. He doesn’t expect to be, but still.

* * *

 

And then, on an exceptionally busy morning, Superintendent Bell knocks on the door of his makeshift office. “DI Poole? Can you spare a minute?”

He doesn’t make him as nervous as the Commissioner does, but that may simply be because he knows he won’t have to deal with him for long. “Of course, sir.”

“There’s been an incident –“

And fifteen minutes later, he’s on his way to a fresh crime scene. The PC who drives him shows himself curious about his assignment in the Caribbean, and he’s only too glad to tell him about it since his parents are beginning to show signs of fatigue whenever he starts talking about Saint Marie.

The “incident” took place in a quaint house at the end of Broughton Street, and when he walks into the living room he finds the woman who lives here – very freshly widowed – in tears while the guys from forensics are trying to see what they can find.

He can more or less hear Camille shouting at him and quickly gains the attention of a female DS.

“I’m sorry Sergeant – I know it’s Sally, but –“

She smiles. “Ford, sir.”

“Alright, DS Ford, could you please take Mrs. Whittaker to the kitchen and make her a cup of tea? And please don’t believe this is because I feel you should be the one handling such tasks; but what we know right now is that a man broke into the house and shot her husband, and at the moment she’s surrounded by them.”

She nods and does as she was told, and he breathes a sigh of relief. One thing dealt with.

* * *

 

After he’s looked at the body, he walks to the kitchen. Mrs. Whittaker is sipping her tea, still shaking badly; and he thinks it wise to stay in the doorway so she doesn’t feel he’s hovering over her.

“Mrs. Whittaker, I’m DI Richard Poole –“

“Oh please, I can’t answer any questions right now” she begins, then stops and studies him. “You sound weird” she continues bluntly.

He winces; he’s aware of it. At Saint Marie, his accent sounded still as clear and undeniably British as it had been at boarding school; but ever since his return he’s noticed that not only has it mellowed somewhat, it also now and the betrays the softer tones of the island. Dad has made quite a few comments on it.

“I am actually stationed at Saint Marie, in the Caribbean. I was sent here to recover from an injury.”

“What injury?”

“I was stabbed in the chest” he says simply.

“And for that they send you away from home?” she demands, and there’s a challenge in her eyes.

He decides he might as well step up to it. “I am sorry, Mrs. Whittaker, but I will not compare me having to leave my “home”, as you call it, for a few months to you losing your husband.”

It’s not exactly a tactful thing to say, in fact it is downright insulting, but he has a feeling – good God, he has a feeling, Camille must never find out about this – that it’s what she needs right now.

And just as he hoped, she throws her head back and laughs. “Do you learn how to talk to the bereaved, or am I just lucky it was you?”

“The later.”

She looks at him, then points at the chair opposite hers. “Sit down, Inspector. I think I can answer your questions now.”

* * *

 

Later, he finds PCs Haller and Haddon in her husband’s home office, discussing their theories. He lets them talk for a few moments before calmly saying, “On the contrary, by all appearances they were a most devoted couple.”

PC Haddon stares at him. “Sir, there’s not a single picture of her in his office!”

“But in every other room of the house. She just told me that Mr. Whittaker liked to keep his private life and business strictly separated, to the extent that he didn’t discuss it with her, and this makes it more believable, wouldn’t you say?”

He doesn’t see the astonished glances they throw him as he goes through the man’s files.

* * *

 

Originally, he was supposed to “hold down the fort” as Bell put it, for a few days until a colleague becomes available to take over the case.

Instead, he arrests Mr. Whittaker’s business partner two days later and congratulates his team on a job well done. They’re not like those he left behind on Saint Marie, but some of them have the makings of great detectives, especially Haddon and Ford.

An hour after he’s made the arrest, Superintendent Bell knocks on his door again. “Inspector, a word?”

And that’s how he ends up back on active duty.

* * *

 

It’s after that that the other senior officers start paying him more attention.  DCI Doyle is the first to come see him. “DI Poole, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir.”

“Would you mind terribly taking a look at the case we’re currently working on? We’re stuck, and I heard of your success in the Whittaker case.”

“Of course.”

It is a rather fascinating puzzle, but he’s able to suggest a few possible solutions, and a few days later, DCI Doyle buys him a pint at the White Hart. “Good God Poole, we’d have been lost without you. And it’s Aidan, I insist on it.”

“Richard.”

He’ll have to lie to Mum about the trip to the pub, but one pint won’t interfere too badly with his pain killers.

After that, colleagues come to him for advice on a regular basis.

* * *

 

A few days later he’s passing by an office when he hears Aidan’s voice. “No, really. Just a bit on the quiet side, that’s all. And pretty damn good at the job, from what I can tell.”

“They say Bell’s pretty keen on him keeping him.”

He’s too used to station gossip – and this doesn’t seem to concern him, anyway – to pay much attention, but he stands still when Aidan answers, “Small wonder. Good luck with that, though. Who’d just give up an assignment in Paradise?”

He all but flees. He’s not used to the gossip about him being _friendly_.

* * *

 

DS Ford has somehow become his partner for the time he’s stationed at Croydon, without either of them being completely certain how it happened. She’s pleasant enough company however, and clever too.

They are on the way to interview a witness when they get stuck in traffic. He’s almost forgotten what it feels like and makes a light-hearted comment of the kind that would have got him that _look_ Camille shoots him now and then.

“Not much traffic on an island, I suppose” DS Ford replies.

And then he’s off talking about Saint Marie again. While he was on the island, he dreamed of good tea and grey skies and the subway, and yet, back in London, all he can speak about is the sand and the heat and his lizard and, always, invariably, Camille.

“Do you have pictures, sir?” DS Ford eventually interrupts him. “It’s just that I’d like to know how they look like, if you don’t mind.”

She’s certainly listened to enough of his ramblings to trust her with the few pictures he has indeed saved on his phone.

Huh. He didn’t realize he’d taken quite that many.

Nor that Camille was in almost all of them, mostly front and centre. She’s even the one holding Rosie.

When he awkwardly explains who she is, DS Ford says “Ah.”

There’s something like wistfulness in her tone. He doesn’t understand.

* * *

 

He’s well informed of what’s happening on Saint Marie, of course. He and the others e-mail back and forth, and he and Camille speak on the phone every few days. He knows Catherine has hired a new waiter, that two women started a fight over Dwayne at La Kaz last week, that Fidel and Julie are considering trying for another child.

And every scrap of information, no matter how irrelevant, seems more important to him than the goings on at London.

* * *

 

“Two more weeks” he tells Camille one evening.

“I know.”

They don’t mention that they’ve apparently both been counting.

“Unless” she continues “they trick you into staying.”

“I am able to enter a plane on my own again, you know. And the Commissioner would have a fit.”

After a pause, she says quietly, “He wouldn’t be the only one.”

“And I thought you’d be glad to get rid of me” he teases.

“Richard!”

Belatedly he realizes he was sent away because they did, in fact, almost get rid of him rather more permanently than he meant to imply.

“I – I’m sorry –“

“It’s alright” she says, “I’m not the one who got stabbed.”

But then she suppresses something that almost sounds like a sniffle, and he doesn’t know what to say.

* * *

 

He’ll return to saint Marie in a week. While time hasn’t exactly past slowly, he’s actually looking forward to leaving behind London winter.

Camille must never learn.

Superintendent Bell invites him to lunch, but to his surprise he leads him to a pub rather out of the way, one not often visited by the other officers. “I thought we’d have a bit more privacy, here.”

He asks for water, since he’s on duty, and earns an appreciative glance,.

Once they are eating, the Superintendent begins, “Look, Richard – may I call you Richard? There’s no need to beat around the bush. You’re a bloody good detective, and you’ve been helping out on other cases while working on your own without taking credit for it. I also hear from the junior officers that they can always come and ask for your help and advice.”

He’s not used to getting credit for his successes. No, that’s not true – he’s not used to getting credit in London. He’s very much used to it on Saint Marie.

“What I mean to say is, I know you had problems when you were stationed at Croydon before. But times have changed, and I hope we have changed as a station as well. I’d be glad if you’d consider getting yourself assigned back to London. There’d be a promotion to DCI in it, of course, and a bigger pay check.”

It’s everything he’s ever wanted: appreciation, a promotion and yes, returning to England.

And he knows with sudden and inevitable clarity exactly what he has to say.

“I’m sorry, sir. But I want to go home.”

* * *

 

To say he’s nervous when he arrives at Saint Marie would be an understatement. Not because of his luggage – really he’s learned to keep the essentials in his brief case – but because when he declined Bell’s offer, he didn’t only realize that Saint Marie has become his home, but also why he’s so eager to talk to and of Camille all the time.

It’s hopeless, of course. With him, it usually is.

But he’ll get to see her again, and he’ll be working with her for the foreseeable future. It will be enough because it has to be.

It’s the Commissioner who picks him up, grinning brightly. Small wonder; he must already have spread the news that Richard got himself permanently assigned to the island. “Chief Inspector. You look well.”

“Thank you s – “ he breaks off and stares at him.

“I considered you being ready to stay here, plus your recent injury, quite enough of a reason to push for a promotion.”

He doesn’t know what to say.

* * *

 

Catherine has prepared a small party again, only this time the banner reads _Welcome home, Richard!_

And Camille is wearing the red dress he remembers from the Ezulrie festival.

She still looks as stunning as she did then, and she hugs him and kisses his cheek once more, squeezing him  tightly. “It’s actually good to see you.”

“I understand. I’ll have to visit England more often” he manages to drawl.

“Don’t you dare, Chief” Dwayne cheerfully supplies, “You’re stuck with us now!”

There are much worse fates out there, he thinks, looking into Camille’s eyes.

* * *

 

People keep dropping in and out of La Kaz to greet and congratulate him, and after about an hour, he needs to take a breather.

It’s Camille who finds him on the veranda a few minutes later. “I thought you’d snuck away.”

“I just needed some air.”

She nods and comes to stand next to him. “It really is good to have you back.”

“You say that now, but wait until we’re fighting during a case again.”

She smiles.

He takes a deep breath. He’s formed a plan in the plane. Get it over with, get rejected, move on. “I – I really missed you.”

He hopes she won’t miss the emphasis, and she doesn’t. “I missed you, too.”

“I mean – I missed you rather more than – you know the others – not that I didn’t miss them, but you have become – very important to me. I –“ he swallows.

She touches his hand. “It’s alright. You don’t have to say it.”

As far as rejections go, it’s definitely on the friendlier side, he tells himself.

Only to be thrown into a loop when she continues, “You can just kiss me.”

He does.

**Ten years later**

“Daddy, do you have to go?”

“Yes Bobby, but I’ll be back in two weeks.” He won’t allow the consultation to keep him from his family for longer than that.

“Do you promise?” Maddie, Bobby’s little sister asks.

“He doesn’t have to, Cherie” Camille says, meeting her husband’s eyes and smiling. “Daddy will always come back to me.”

He doesn’t answer as he kisses her.

After all, it’s nothing but the truth.


End file.
